Courageous The Description of Humbert Humbert
40 In order to judge whether somebody is a pedophile or not, the writer do
not wholly concerned to the past of that person, but rather on the symptoms. Based on the findings about Humbert’s characteristics, the writer would like to
emphasize that Humbert was interested in underage girls. Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine
and fourteen there occur maidens who, certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human,
but nympic that is demoniac; and these chosen creatures I propose to
designate as “nymphets” Nabokov, 2008: 15. Humbert
’s relationship with an underage girl can be seen in the novel while he was with two characters, Monique and Lolita. The writer, however, has
excluded Monique from the analysis for she was a prostitute, not a victim. As a prostitute, sexual intercourse happening between her and Humbert were
voluntary, of course, in exchange of money. Meanwhile Lolita was chosen in this analysis because she was a victim of Humbert’s pedophilia and the whole story
was about Humbert’s relationship with Lolita. In chapter one of this study, the writer has already mentioned studies of
the characteristics of Humbert. Now as the studies were picked to support the analysis on Humbert’s pedophilia, the writer highlighted events and deeds of
Humbert in the novel that met the characteristics of someone being a pedophile. The characteristics of pedophilia that can be revealed are long term
persistent pattern of behavior that results in jealousy, children as preferred sexual object and well-developed techniques obtaining victim as the reflection of
Humbert’s possessive, sexual fantasy to disguise his sex obsession toward children, and maintain a facade resulteing in negative courage.
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